Asking questions.

Asking questions.

The main function of any language is the exchange of information. Because of this, being able to ask questions is an essential part of learning any language!

Luckily, asking questions in Swedish does not differ much from asking questions in English at all!

First, we have a selection of question words, just like in English.

Swedish	English
vad	what
var	where (location)
vart	where (direction)
hur	how
varför	why
vem	who
vems	whose
när	when
vilken/vilket/vilka	which

Most of the time, we use these just like we would in English.

Swedish	English
Vad gör du?	What are you doing?
Var är du?	Where are you?
Vems hund är det?	Whose dog is it?

Note that the Swedish equivalents of which are conjugated just like the adjectives.

Form	Swedish	English
En-words	Vilken bil?	Which car?
Ett-words	Vilket hus?	Which house?
Plural	Vilka hundar?	Which dogs?

Also you might have noticed Swedish contains two words for where. What for? It's quite simple really, one is for location, where you are, and one is for direction, where you are heading.

• Var är du? (Where are you?)
• Vart går du? (Where are you going?)

Don't worry if you mix these up sometimes, a lot of native speakers do it all the time!

Inversion

Inversion is when you change the word order in certain situations. Let's take a look at English:

• You are running.
• Are you running?

Notice how we completely changed the meaning of the sentence just by switching the positions of you and are. Amazing!

And even more amazing: Swedish uses a system very similar to this:

• Du springer. (You are running.)
• Springer du? (Are you running?)

Just like above, we made a question just by switching the positions of du and springer.

One thing to note is that when using modal verbs (auxiliary verbs) you only invert the modal verb:

• Han kan springa. (He can run.)
• Kan han springa?. (Can he run?)

Again, very similar to English. Note however that unlike English, Swedish does not use to do as an auxiliary verb.

• Do you run? (Springer du?)
• Do you like me? (Gillar du mig?)

Enough reading, it's time for some practice! Good luck and enjoy the simplicity that is Swedish questions!